Vargas tore his thoughts away and smashed down with the hammer. Stupid, so stupid. He'd left a trail, clues to his identity, and now it wasn't safe to do the thing anymore — perhaps not for a long, long time. [...666 hundred years of pain...] It was his own damn fault, and he'd have to live with that, but the urgent need still smoldered. It burned and sometimes overflowed, like a boiling hot poison. [...mafia! that damn bodyguard, chasing him relentlessly...] This was like starving to death, not being able to do the thing for days. Staying out of sight, living in the middle of nowhere with that fucking hobo Chalmers.
Vargas was explosive, clever and quick. He had gotten away with doing the thing many times, but not that night, not with that woman. Bitch. Tramp. Whore. [...that rock singer, dee jennings, her body jumped and trembled, outraged. she thrashed around and coughed up a kind of ragged shriek as the room filled with the odor of roasting flesh — oh good so very good — and he let her struggle for a while before grabbing her by the neck, squeezing with his hands; before the knife, using the beautiful blade of his knife...] Stop.
No sense in getting too excited, thinking about any of those girls. The way it was, how it felt to be God. I'm restless and impatient, Vargas realized. I don't want to slip up.
He knew he should wait, but he was beginning to have trouble controlling himself. He felt summoned, like something big was going on out there, something strange and wonderful. A war. He could smell it, taste it, wanted to be a part of it. An army was on the move — Vargas fancied he could hear a rumble in the earth like the sound of distant cannon. The air was full of ashes and the odor of spoiled meat. Violence was approaching; a black thunderhead, stuffed with reckless bolts of human lightning.
[...devil's reign, reign, reign...]
Vargas didn't want to miss the big event.
He dropped the rock sample into the sack tied to his belt and examined the bumpy surface of the wall for traces of gold or silver. He began hammering again — face impassive, soul on fire and itching for a fight.
A thin tendril of vagrant wind dove into the mine and rubbed itself against him like a hungry cat. It was a cold night, bone-chilling. He packed his things and started back towards the entrance to the cave: Chalmers, a fire, some decent food and whiskey. Another day crossed off the calendar, endured and put behind him. Tell me what you want me to do. Please!
It is also like this:
Moonrise. Pale, anemic light filters through fine silk while coyotes howl and worship the goddess. Tireless wind, shifting sand, stars so clear and bright they seem to lean down for a closer look at the planet. The night falls like a curtain. Insects begin to chatter among themselves, rustle about in the creaky, twisted sage; they brag, rattle and raise a royal fuss.
And the desert? It just keeps moving.
9
ROURKE
Peter awoke to the tantalizing smell of smoking bacon frying in the cool mountain air. He accepted Paula Baxter's offer of strong coffee and a hearty breakfast; he was dragging his feet anyway, waiting for Julie to awaken. But the girl remained inside the RV. She was still groggy and couldn't remember anything of the previous night's events.
Rourke said his good-byes, paying special attention to little Timmy, then drove towards the low mountain range, heading for home. He managed to cover the remaining distance in record time, his excitement steadily increasing. So many years, and now the last stretch.
He had a bit more trouble than he'd expected negotiating the small dirt road up the hill, but then he was a little out of practice. The car complained, thumped its muffler on some half-buried rocks, but kept on covering ground. The dust became foothills, and then mountains. The time flashed by. Rourke had the strange feeling he had left his addiction behind, once and for all, as if it had only been a feeble substitute for nature. He remembered something a theologian had written; that alcohol and drugs were just "cheap" holy grace.
He yanked the wheel; skidded around the corner and suddenly he was there. Rourke shut off the engine. Monday was panting on the seat beside him. He opened the door and the dog ran off to amuse himself.
Peter leaned back and closed his eyes. The hiss of steam escaping from the radiator mingled with a faint sigh of breeze murmuring through the tall pines. Rourke gorged himself on the heady, potent fragrance of fresh, mountain greenery.
He opened his eyes and took in the sight of the little cabin, all redwood and glass, nestled back among the trees. There were no neighbors within miles of the place. It was comfortable and equipped with every modern convenience. Finally, no outside voices. No intruders to shove their way into his hiding place. No talent, no skulling.
Rourke carried in box after box of supplies, feeling more cheerful by the minute. The cabin seemed a trifle dusty, but he was home. He flipped on each of the lights and checked the plumbing. Uncle Jeremy hadn't approved of his adding electricity and a telephone. He called Peter a city boy, a punk. But by then Rourke had grown accustomed to Jeremy's gruff mannerisms. He'd gone ahead with his plans, even modernized the kitchen, though he'd left the cabin just as it was. Why change it? The building was special.
Long, wooden beams angled down towards a large fireplace in the center of the living room. The furniture was all antique, from his Grandfather's ranch. Off in one corner stood a battered old upright piano. He'd composed his first song on it, nearly twenty years before, and discovered a haven in music.
Rourke trotted upstairs to explore the bedrooms. All of the windows were intact, nothing was missing. A sudden tension grabbed his innards. Memories hit him in a flood: Jeremy. This room. Hiding in the night, under the covers, afraid to describe his visions or the nightmares about the death of his Grandfather.
Peter had loved these mountains, but he'd often prayed that Jeremy would just let him be. Not drag him off to shoot something, test his strength or try to make a "man" out of the boy. Jeremy seemed amused at the idea of a special psi talent. He thought he had to set his little nephew straight. Actually, all Rourke really needed was a little peace and quiet and a chance to heal. Fortunately, over the years Jeremy had grudgingly come to accept Rourke's desire for long periods of isolation. He'd perceived it as manly, and that silence had given the child precious time to experiment with various methods for blocking — shutting out the mental dissonance by walling it off from within.
Jeremy had worried constantly that there might be something wrong with a boy who would rather tinker with instruments and meditate than hunt or fish, so Rourke had learned macho games and sports in order to keep the peace. He'd been young, unstable and inexperienced. Nothing had come easy.
But now Jeremy was four years dead and gone. I'll never be able to thank him, Rourke thought. Tell him that I finally understand.
Jeremy had done his best, taught Rourke what he could of the things he'd gleaned from life. And he had helped to strengthen Peter, as well as inadvertently inspire his nephew's search for an effective way to shield his wild talent. First, he just pretended it wasn't there. Then he practiced willing it away. Then he wrote the law.
The law was BFS, Block for Survival. Protect your sanity. As he grew up, Rourke had gradually become more controlled. He'd begun to use his talent sparingly, by choice, never from reflex. He learned to exist in mental silence, like everyone else, and soon came to enjoy it — skulling less and less often until he was seldom troubled by the talent at all. He'd won, managed to smother it. And, except for that bleak period surrounding Dee Jennings death, he'd more or less controlled it…until recently. The strange flashes he had experienced back in Two Trees and while searching for Julie Baxter began gnawing at his mind again. Damn...
Peter Rourke didn't blame his father anymore, though his mother had never stopped hating the man. It was all so long ago — far away, as if seen through a thin strip of rice paper. Two bright orbs: Coke-bottle eyeglasses. Acrid pipe smoke, the antiseptic odor of cheap mouthwash. Shouting, criticism, corporal punishment. He could still recall the twin traces of spittle — one would appear at each co
rner of his father's mouth whenever he worked himself into a rage.
["Skull harder! Think!"]
They'd been living in Reno then, close to the university. Melissa Sharpe had enrolled in school looking for a husband. Thomas Dooley Rourke taught there, lectured on abnormal psychology while he dreamed of making a major scientific breakthrough.
Their son Peter was forced to walk, talk and read early. His toys were test objects used to assess psychic ability. Thomas Rourke had pummeled the boy until he was virtually a lab animal. Although Melissa remained silent, she came to despise her husband for turning her perfect little darling into a carnival freak.
In addition to his paranormal abilities, Peter also displayed a marked proclivity for music, languages and vocabulary. His growing body seemed to belong to someone else. A bookworm by nature, he suffered terribly from the pressure and began to bend inside; cut off from his peers, uncomfortable within his own family. He began to dread going home.
["What color is the card I'm thinking of?"
"I don't know."
"Guess, then."
"Green?"
"Try harder. Stop fucking around."
"I'm sorry, I am trying. Honest."]
Peter's talent proved to be a disappointment in the end. It was often unreliable. He seemed to have no control over when he would be able to perform certain feats, predict events, or suddenly achieve a staggeringly high score on one of the tests.
His father was always angry with him. His mother was always angry with his father. There had been a trial separation. Thomas eventually followed Melissa and the boy up to Two Trees, where the problem got completely out of hand. Divorce was inevitable, and Peter Rourke never saw his father again. When his mother died, he went to live with Jeremy.
Overwhelmed and guilt-ridden, he withdrew even further, went deeper into himself, cursing his talent for the damage it had done to his family. Rourke had concentrated, experimented, and finally caused his gift to vanish. He threw himself into music and sports.
Rourke went back down the stairs and began to stuff groceries into the kitchen cabinets. His mother was now resting next to his Grandfather in the town's small cemetery. Had she forgiven him for being such a problem? Had Grandpa forgiven him for…doing that? He walked outside and removed his shirt. He was chopping wood when Monday returned from a romp in the forest. As the ax rose and fell, the sound of his labors echoing through the empty woods, his dark mood lifted.
There had been good times, too. Everyone had been so much younger. The residents of Two Trees had held picnics in the cool shade of a rock face; improvised enthusiastic square dances to the pulsating whine of Spats Rafferty's rusty harmonica and the rhythmic clapping of callused hands. He remembered the pleasant odor of bourbon, thick clouds of cigar smoke; hiding behind a boulder, eavesdropping, as grizzled farmers swapped tall stories around a roaring fire.
Now and again saintly evangelist Louise Polson would drop by to collect her man Hiram. The liquor disappeared, cigars were crushed under boot heels and four letter words were choked off. Louise had been a tolerant preacher before the accident. She'd had a marvelous sense of humor. She would quote the Bible as if in disapproval, then down a slug of whiskey and join the party. Yes, there had been good times.
Occasionally Grandpa had reminisced about the old days, when he and his father had first come to Nevada. How they'd bought too much land at first, yet made things work by befriending and hiring the local Indians.
Jeremy would tell of fighting the Nips on Tarawa: Bloated bodies, American and Japanese boys, floating for days in the sea, their putrid skin blackened by the cruel sun. People said his uncle had been a hero, but Jeremy seldom discussed the war — except when the liquor was talking. He'd described horrors beyond imagining. Fat leeches, hideous disease, pointless sacrifice and senseless slaughter. The others always heard him out, as if by unspoken agreement. In retrospect, it seemed a kind of group therapy. There was only one firm rule — no one remembered a word come the morning sun.
Fascinating stuff for a creative young boy.
The drug use and abuse now seemed a million miles away, and Rourke could barely remember why he'd once been in a hurry to leave. He played a few soft chords on his guitar and fell asleep with his head near the fire.
10
LANGSTROM & JASON
A pickup truck by the roadside. See the truck bed, packed with camping gear and easels? There sits the man, near an empty gulley…
The painter's name was Fred Langstrom. He sat quietly before his easel, waiting for inspiration to strike. He had painted sunrise, sunset, sage flowers, dried sage, sand swirls, a mirage and almost anything else that had struck his fancy. The aging hack, now retired and living out his dream. He closed his eyes momentarily, and when he opened them again there was something new in the painting. The black shadow of a man, encroaching on his sacred space. A chill ran through Langstrom, for he had no memory of having put it there. He shook off a feeling of dread and painted over the black patch…
Hahuhahuhahuha
…Jason chuckled and then withdrew from Langstrom's mind. He relaxed and allowed himself to drift. Before long he found himself daydreaming of Karen.
See her? The beautiful little girl is smiling down on Jason Smith like a Goddess. She presses her bleeding finger against his and kisses him lightly on the cheek…
"Friends, Jason. Forever and ever."
…NO! And then Karen collapses inward; wasted by disease, her lovely skin crinkling like sandwich wrap; shrinking into a fine, powdery dust that layers the white bone of her grinning skull. Jason stares into her haunting, bottomless eye sockets and screams and screams...
Jason wakes up, gasping. Am I insane? They said I was some kind of a paranoid schitzophrenic. Maybe it's true. Is any of this real; ANY of it? What if Karen is still alive somewhere, and I'm mistaken? What if I just imagined it all? How can I ever be sure?
No! Karen was dead. He had loved her. She belonged to the long ago of memory. And now, no human feeling must remain to torture him, confuse his sense of purpose. Jason Smith was a child of destiny — with a mission; to pave the way for the Night of the Beast.
11
MAGGIE
Maggie Moore kept hearing the blood zinging through her veins, making a high-pitched whine like a horde of mosquitoes. She slugged her pillow and turned, but it was useless. She could not sleep. I'm soaked, she thought, just plain soaked with sweat. This is ridiculous, girl. Christ, nothing really happened! Well, nothing you could put your finger on anyway. Still, that face. Those weird eyes.
...Late that afternoon, around four o'clock: The sky had just begun to thicken, cloud up and turn into nightfall. Maggie was looking through some old magazines when she felt the hair on the back of her neck begin to rise. She whipped her upper body around to face the screen door and discovered a wide, hulking shadow just beyond.
"Hello, honey," he said.
"You startled me."
"I'm sorry about that."
He didn't sound sorry. Maggie even fancied she detected a note of satisfaction in his voice. Why would he want to scare me?
The man stepped closer and the sunlight redesigned his shape. He wasn't a monster, huge enough to rip down the wall; in fact, he was rather slight. Latin, perhaps. Damn good-looking in his own arrogant fashion. There's nothing to be afraid of, Maggie told herself. But her knees remained weak and wobbly and it was tough to manufacture a smile.
He was staring at her in the strangest way, as if she were a slab of beef instead of an attractive young woman. There's nothing sexual at all in his look, she thought. That's precisely what's giving me the creeps. Christ, Rourke, bring your dog back here — fast.
"I assume you're not selling Girl Scout cookies," she heard herself say. "So, what are you doing on my porch?" Not bad, Maggie. Show a little backbone.
"My car overheated," the stranger said. He smiled and she thought of a shark. His teeth were that white; too long, too perfect. He wants to fuck me, so what
. Maggie said: "Try the garage down the block."
"Just need to beg a little water, lady."
"There's a hose out there on the lawn, then," she said. "Help yourself."
He leaned forward casually, against the frame of the screen door. "Hey, it would sure bail me out if I could borrow your phone for just a minute. I need to tell a friend I'm running late."
I don't want to let him in, but be honest. If he wanted to, he could be inside in no time. There's nothing there but a screen, he could bust right through that door. You're being silly. Come to think of it, do you want to risk pissing him off over something as harmless as using the phone?
"I guess its okay," Maggie said as she unhooked the screen. She held her breath like a kid on a roller coaster, and then let it out with her name. "I'm Maggie Moore."
He winked. "Call me Tony."
"There's the phone," she said, gliding towards the safety of the kitchen. "Care for some iced tea?"
"That would be great."
Maggie felt a perverse sexual excitement growing, fueled by the element of risk. It made her feel slutty, unclean. Her old voices called her sick for reacting physically to the thought of a dangerous man. Years of therapy rendered useless. So far, she thought, this guy has absolutely made my day — goddamn him.
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